2019 in reptile paleontology
This list of fossil reptiles described in 2019 is a list of new taxa of fossil reptiles that were described during the year 2019, as well as other significant discoveries and events related to reptile paleontology that occurred in 2019.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Lizards and snakes, New taxa
A skink, a species of Chalcides. Announced in 2019; the final version of the article naming it was published in 2020.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Lizards and snakes, New taxa
A lizard belonging to the family Ardeosauridae. The type species is G. khangaicus.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Lizards and snakes, New taxa
Possibly a member of Dibamidae. Genus includes new species H. mongoliensis.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Lizards and snakes, New taxa
A lizard of uncertain phylogenetic placement. The type species is H. xiei.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Lizards and snakes, New taxa
A basal member of Scleroglossa. The type species is I. wangi.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Lizards and snakes, New taxa
A lizard belonging to the family Globauridae. The type species is K. aptiana.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Lizards and snakes, New taxa
A lizard belonging to the family Paramacellodidae. The type species is N. dinosauroaequalis.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Lizards and snakes, New taxa
A lizard belonging to the family Eoxantidae. The type species is P. conicodentata.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Lizards and snakes, New taxa
A lizard belonging to the family Dorsetisauridae. Genus includes new species P. postumus.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Lizards and snakes, New taxa
A snake, a member of Colubroidea of uncertain phylogenetic placement. The type species is S. elaphoides.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Lizards and snakes, New taxa
A lizard belonging to the family Xenosauridae. Genus includes new species X. futilus.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Sauropterygians, New taxa
A member of the family Elasmosauridae. Genus includes new species L. bernardoi.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Sauropterygians, New taxa
An early member of Plesiosauria. Genus includes new species L. thiuda.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Sauropterygians, New taxa
An early member of Eosauropterygia. Genus includes new species P. rotundirostris.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Turtles, New taxa
A member of the family Ctenochelyidae. The type species is A. parhami.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Turtles, New taxa
A member of the family Geoemydidae. The type species is "Hardella" isoclina Dubois (1908).


2019 in reptile paleontology, Turtles, New taxa
A member of Pelomedusoides. The type species is F. gadoufaouaensis.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Turtles, New taxa
A member of the family Bothremydidae. Genus includes new species I. cetiotesta.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Turtles, New taxa
A member of the family Xinjiangchelyidae. Genus includes new species K. prasarttongosothi.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Turtles, New taxa
A member of the family Adocidae. Genus includes new species P. rubra.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Turtles, New taxa
A member of the family Baenidae. Genus includes new species S. gilberti.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Archosauriformes, Other archosauriforms, New taxa
An archosauriform archosauromorph reptile. The type species is A. shackletoni.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Other reptiles, New taxa
A member of Drepanosauromorpha. The type species is A. paradoxus.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Other reptiles, New taxa
A member of the family Acleistorhinidae. The type species is C. lundi. Announced in 2019; the correction including the required ZooBank accession number was published in 2020.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Other reptiles, New taxa
A member of Choristodera. Genus includes new species C. jurassicus.


2019 in reptile paleontology, Other reptiles, New taxa
A member of the family Tanystropheidae; a new genus for "Tanystropheus" fossai Wild (1980).


2019 in reptile paleontology, General research
Research concerning more than one group of reptiles listed above.


2019 in rock music
This article summarizes the events related to rock music for the year of 2019.


2019 in sailing
The following are the scheduled events of sailing for the year 2019 throughout the world.


2019 in spaceflight
This article documents notable spaceflight events during the year 2019.


2019 in spaceflight, Overview, Lunar exploration
The Chinese probe Chang'e 4 made the humanity's first soft landing on the far side of the Moon on 3 January and released its Yutu 2 rover to explore the lunar surface on the far side for the first time in human history.


2019 in spaceflight, Overview, Lunar exploration
Israel's SpaceIL, one of the participants in the expired Google Lunar X Prize launched the first private mission to the Moon in February. The Beresheet lander from SpaceIL made the landing attempt in April, but crashed onto the Moon. India launched the delayed Chandrayaan-2 lunar orbiter/lander/rover in July; the orbiter reached lunar orbit by September, but the Vikram lander crashed into the lunar surface.


2019 in spaceflight, Overview, Exploration of the Solar System
The probe New Horizons encountered the Kuiper belt object 486958 Arrokoth on 1 January. This is the farthest object from the Sun ever to have a close encounter with a spacecraft. The Japanese asteroid exploration mission Hayabusa2 made a second touchdown with 162173 Ryugu to collect samples, and departed for Earth on 12 November. NASA declared the Mars rover Opportunity's mission over on 13 February. The InSight lander observed the first recorded Marsquake in April.


2019 in spaceflight, Overview, Human spaceflight
The first Commercial Crew Development test missions flew this year, aiming to restore United States human spaceflight capability following Space Shuttle retirement in 2011. In an uncrewed test flight, SpaceX SpaceX Dragon 2 successfully flew on a Falcon 9 to the International Space Station on 3 March 2019; the crewed mission was delayed when the recovered capsule exploded during testing on 20 April. Boeing's CST-100 Starliner launched a similar uncrewed test flight on an Atlas V on 20 December, but an anomaly during launch meant that it could not reach the ISS and had to land only 2 days later.


2019 in spaceflight, Overview, Rocket innovation
At the beginning of the year, around 100 small satellite launchers were in active use, in development, or were recently cancelled or stalled. Three Chinese manufacturers launched their first orbital rocket in 2019: The maiden flight of OS-M1 in March failed to reach orbit, the maiden flights of Hyperbola-1 in July and of Jielong 1 in August were successful. The PSLV-DL and PSLV-QL variants of the Indian PSLV first flew in January and April respectively.


2019 in spaceflight, Overview, Rocket innovation
SpaceX began testing of the SpaceX Starship in 2019, with an uncrewed prototype "Starhopper" flying 150m in the air in a suborbital test flight on 27 August. The heavy-lift Long March 5 made its return to flight in December, more than two years after the July 2017 launch failure that grounded the vehicle and forced an engine redesign.


2019 in spaceflight, Overview, Rocket innovation
The "single stick" Delta IV was retired in August, and the analog-controlled Soyuz-FG was retired in September. Due to Ukraine banning control system exports to Russia, Rokot was retired after a final flight in December.


2019 in spaceflight, Extravehicular activities (EVAs)
Hague and Morgan installed the final International Docking Adapter on the Harmony Module. The task for this spacewalk was identical to Spacewalk 194 and required work by both spacewalkers and Dextre to get the docking port installed in preparation for the Boeing CST-100 Starliner orbital flight test, which will occur by the end of December. The crew also routed cables and installed Wi-Fi routers for upcoming experiments.


2019 in spaceflight, Extravehicular activities (EVAs)
This spacewalk was the first of Expedition 61 and the first in a series of five to replace and improve ISS batteries on the P6 truss.


2019 in spaceflight, Extravehicular activities (EVAs)
This spacewalk was the second of Expedition 61 and the second in a series of five to replace and improve ISS batteries on the P6 truss. Before they went out to the hatch, Mission Control Moscow relayed to the crew that Alexei Leonov had died and that this spacewalk was dedicated to him. As the crew came in and took off their suits, each gave a few words in memory of Leonov before station commander Luca Parmitano said "Farewell Alexei, and ad astra."


2019 in spaceflight, Extravehicular activities (EVAs)
This spacewalk was the third of Expedition 61 and the third in a series of five to replace and improve ISS batteries on the P6 truss. Some of the battery swaps were delayed to EVA 222 due to a power failure in a Battery Charge Discharge Unit in slots 5 and 6 on the P6 Truss taking the 4B battery channel offline. Koch and Meir replaced the failed unit and brought it back inside.


2019 in spaceflight, Extravehicular activities (EVAs)
The battery swap was moved to EVA 222 to save time and Meir and Koch wrapped up the spacewalk by installing a stanchion on the Columbus Module and tightening the bolts on the S0 Truss, which had come loose. This spacewalk was the first all-female spacewalk. During the spacewalk, President Trump called the station and congratulated Koch and Meir on this milestone.


2019 in spaceflight, Extravehicular activities (EVAs)
First of a series of four spacewalks to repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer which suffered a power failure last year in one of its four cooling pumps limiting the operation of the experiment. Parmitano and Morgan went outside and removed a cover plate from AMS and jettisoned it into space to make way for a cryo pump that they will assemble between spacewalks. Some of the bolts put up a fight but Parmitano got them all out.


2019 in spaceflight, Extravehicular activities (EVAs)
The highlight of the spacewalk is when Andrew Morgan threw the cover plate overboard and it drifted off aft of the station into the vacuum of space. The plate will stay in orbit for a few days until the end of December when it enters the atmosphere and burns up. The crew also removed several carbon fiber strips around fluid lines and installed handrails and grapple bars as get-ahead task. This spacewalk marks Parmitano's return to spacewalking after the Water in the Helmet Incident during EVA 171.


2019 in spaceflight, Extravehicular activities (EVAs)
The second in a series of four spacewalks to repair the AMS. Parmitano and Morgan cut fluid lines and installed a vent on the AMS Experiment to prep the old cooling pump for removal on the third spacewalk. Parmitano and Morgan also routed cables and installed a new power supply to power the pumps when they are installed on the third spacewalk.


2019 in spaceflight, Extravehicular activities (EVAs)
The third in a series of four spacewalks to repair the AMS. Parmitano and Morgan went out on the third spacewalk and installed the cryo pump and routed fluid and electrical lines to power the pump. Flight controllers in Houston, Huntsville, and at CERN activated the experiment and radioed to the crew that AMS passed with flying colors. The crew finished the spacewalk by doing a get-ahead task by covering AMS with thermal blanket.


2019 in spaceflight, Orbital launch statistics, By country
For the purposes of this section, the yearly tally of orbital launches by country assigns each flight to the country of origin of the rocket, not to the launch services provider or the spaceport. For example, Soyuz launches by Arianespace in Kourou are counted under Russia because Soyuz-2 is a Russian rocket.


2019 in sport climbing
This article lists the main sport climbing (also known as competition climbing) competitions and their results for 2019. This includes the World Cup, World Championships, International Climbing Series, Continental Championships.


2019 in sports
2019 in sports describes the year's events in world sports. The main events were the 2019 Cricket World Cup, the 2019 Rugby World Cup, and the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup.


2019 in squash sport
This article lists the results for the sport of Squash in 2019.


2019 in stand-up comedy
This is a timeline documenting events and facts about English-speaking stand-up comedy in the year 2019.


2019 in sumo
The following are the events in professional sumo during 2019.


2019 in table tennis
This page lists notable table tennis events taking place in 2019.


2019 in tennis
This page covers all the important events in the sport of tennis in 2019. Primarily, it provides the results of notable tournaments throughout the year on both the ATP and WTA Tours, the Davis Cup, and the Fed Cup.


2019 in the Bahamas
This article lists events from the year 2019 in the Bahamas


2019 in the British Virgin Islands
Events from the year 2019 in the British Virgin Islands.


2019 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Events in the year 2019 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.


2019 in the Northern Mariana Islands
Events in the year 2019 in the Northern Mariana Islands.


2019 in the Philippines
2019 in the Philippines details events of note that have occurred in the Philippines in 2019.


2019 in the Philippines, Holidays
On August 16, 2018, the government announced at least 18 Philippine holidays for 2019 as declared by virtue of Proclamation No. 555, series of 2018. Note that in the list, holidays in italics are "special non-working holidays," those in bold are "regular holidays," and those in non-italics and non-bold are "special holidays for schools."


2019 in the Philippines, Holidays
In addition, several other places observe local holidays, such as the foundation of their town. These are also "special days."


2019 in the State of Palestine, Events, February, February 28
Feminist Palestinian law-maker Khalida Jarrar is released after 20 months in Israeli custody. She had been put under administrative detention, incarceration without trial or charge. According to Jarrar, she does not know what she was arrested for.


2019 in the State of Palestine, Events, April, April 8
A hunger strike among Palestinian prisoners protesting the conditions in Israeli jails begins. The number of hunger strikers reaches 400 over the next few days.


2019 in the State of Palestine, Events, April, April 9
Airbnb reverses its plan to delist homes in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank but promises to donate all profits from such properties to humanitarian aid organizations. Ben Jamal of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign calls the decision "frankly insulting".


2019 in the State of Palestine, Events, April, April 19
Israel demolishes two apartments in the Wadi al-Harya area in southern Hebron belonging to the Irfiya family. The demolitions are punishment for Palestinian prisoner Arafat Irfaiya, 19, who Israel accuses of having killed an Israeli settler in Jerusalem in February.


2019 in the State of Palestine, Events, July, July 22
Israel demolishes several Palestinian homes it says was built illegally and too close to the Israeli West Bank barrier in Sur Baher, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem. The demolition displaces 17 Palestinians.


2019 in the State of Palestine, Events, July, July 30
The Socialist International consisting of 162 left-wing organizations and political parties convenes in Ramallah.


2019 in the State of Palestine, Events, September, September 4
Hundreds of Palestinians march in Ramallah, demanding protection against honor killings after Isra'a Ghrayeb, 22, was allegedly beaten to death by relatives on August 22.


2019 in the State of Palestine, Events, September, September 11
The Israeli army demolishes two Palestinian buildings under construction in Eizariya in East Jerusalem. According to the owner, the Israeli authorities claimed that they were built without permit and too close to the Israeli West Bank barrier.


2019 in the State of Palestine, Events, September, September 15
The Israeli government Israeli officially approves the establishment of the settlement Mevo'ot Yeriho north of Jericho, making it the sixth new authorized settlement since the Oslo accords.


2019 in the State of Palestine, Events, September, September 25
The Palestinian prisoners that began hunger striking in April reaches a deal with the Israel Prison Service (IPS). IPS agreed to remove jamming devices from cells and allow prisoners to call their relatives five days per week using public telephone.


2019 in the State of Palestine, Events, October, October 24
Rioting breaks out as Israeli forces demolish the family home of Islam Yousef Abu Hamid in Ramallah's al-Amari refugee camp for the second time. Abu Hamid is imprisoned in Israel for having killed Israeli soldier Ronen Lubarsky and the demolitions of his home was carried out as punishment.


2019 in the State of Palestine, Events, November, November 12
The European Court of Justice rules that Israeli products produced in the occupied West Bank must be labelled as such. They must not carry the generic "Made in Israel" tag.


2019 in the State of Palestine, Events, November, November 12
Israeli forces demolish four Bedouin homes made of corrugated iron in the E1 zone east of Jerusalem in the West Bank.


2019 in the State of Palestine, Events, December, December 11
Israeli authorities arrest Palestinian journalist Bushra al-Tawil, 27, from Al-Bireh in the West Bank. On December 16, she is put in administrative detention - incarceration without charge.


2019 in the United Arab Emirates
Events in the year 2019 in the United Arab Emirates.


2019 in the United Kingdom
Events from the year 2019 in the United Kingdom. Lack of agreement on how to proceed with withdrawing from the EU led to substantial political turmoil during this year culminating in the 2019 General election in which the pro-Brexit Conservative party gained a significant majority of seats.


2019 in the United Nations
The following lists events that happened with or in collaboration with the United Nations and its agencies in the year 2019.


2019 in the environment
This is a article of notable issues relating to the environment in 2019. They relate to environmental law, conservation, environmentalism and environmental issues.


2019 in the environment
Christian Aid report December 2019 evaluated the costs of floods, fires and storms in 2019. Climate crisis was linked to at least 15 over 1 billion cost destructions in 2019.


2019 in the environment, Environmental issues, Plastic pollution
2019 was the year the worldwide revolt against Plastic pollution. Production and disposal of plastic used already nearly 14% of all the world’s oil and gas. According to  the International Energy Agency plastics annual carbon budget may become equivalent of the world’s fifth largest climate heating country, emitting more than Germany or the UK. 359 m tonnes plastics were produced in 2018. Ca 8m tons plastic waste run to the sea via rivers. Since 2010 the petrochemical industry has invested about $200bn, and $100bn more is planned to be spent, plastic production is expected to grow 40% by 2030.


2019 in the environment, Environmental issues, Sixth mass extinction
Sixth mass extinction: According to the first global scientific review of insects in February 2019 found that more than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year.


2019 in the environment, Environmental issues, Sixth mass extinction
In May 2019 was published biodiversity report, that pointed out the biodiversity to decline in threatening speed. It will be crisis to life of plants, animals and humans. IPBES reported that 25% of plant and animal species are threatened with extinction as the result of human activity.


2019 in the environment, Environmental issues, Microplastics
In January 2019, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) proposed to restrict intentionally added microplastics.


2019 in the environment, Events and news
Extreme weather includes Storm Eberhard across the Netherlands, Belgium and central Germany in Europe in March 2019.


2019 in the environment, Events and news
Cyclone Idai killed 1,300 people in Zimbabwe, Mozambique  and Malawi in March, 2019. It ranks as the second-deadliest tropical cyclone on record. The only system with a higher death toll is the 1973 Flores cyclone that killed 1,650 off the coast of Indonesia.


2019 in the environment, Events and news
Cyclone Fani struck India and Bangladesh in May and June. A stronger than usual monsoon killed 1,900 people in India.


2019 in the environment, Events and news
In May 2019 according to University of Bristol UK emissions of CFC-11 from north eastern China particularly in or around the provinces of Shandong and Hebei had increased by around 7,000 tons per year after 2013. A global ban on the use of CFCs has been in place since 2010 to prevent Ozone depletion.


2019 in the environment, Events and news
Typhoon Lekima (2019) was the second costliest typhoon in Chinese history.


2019 in the environment, Events and news
The typhoons Typhoon Faxai (2019)  and Typhoon Hagibis (2019)  in Japan in September and October 2019. Hurricane Dorian  in the US east coast, killing 673 people. Hurricane Dorian was the most intense tropical cyclone on record to strike the Bahamas, and is regarded as the worst natural disaster in the country's history.


2019 in the environment, Events and news
Venice Italy had the highest water levels for more than 50 years caused hundreds of millions of euros of possibly irreparable damage in Venice.


2019 in the environment, Events and news
The 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference was held in Madrid, Spain, from 2 to 13 December 2019.


2019 in the environment, Events and news
The Australian wildfires in December 2019 were intense. Record low rainfall contributed to a continent-scale emergency that burned more than 5 million hectares and alarmed scientists, doctors and firefighters. On 19 December 2019 average temperature maximum in Australia hit the record 41.9C. According to NASA Fires in New South Wales and Queensland emitted from August to December 306 million tons of carbon dioxide, which is more than half of Australia’s total greenhouse gas footprint in 2018.


2019 in the sport of athletics
In 2019, the main athletic events were the 2019 IAAF World Cross Country Championships, the 2019 IAAF World Relays, and the 2019 World Athletics Championships.


2019 in triathlon
This article consists of the ITU and Ironman Triathlon events for 2019.


2019 in video games
In the video game industry during 2019, both Sony and Microsoft announced their intent to reveal their next-generation consoles in 2020, while Nintendo introduced a smaller Nintendo Switch Lite, and Google announced its streaming game platform Stadia. The controversy over loot boxes as a potential gambling route continued into 2019, with some governments like Belgium and the Netherlands banning games with them under their gambling laws, while the United Kingdom acknowledging their current laws prevent enforcing these as if they were games of chance.


2019 in video games
The first video cards to support real-time ray tracing were put onto the consumer market, including the first set of games that would take advantage of the new technology. The Epic Games Store continued its growth in challenging the largest digital PC game distribution service Steam, leading to concern and debate about Epic Games' methods to seek games for its service. Dota Auto Chess, a community-created mod for Dota 2, introduced a new subgenre of strategy games called auto battlers, which saw several games in the genre released throughout the year. Blizzard Entertainment faced criticism due to their involvement in the Blitzchung controversy, which began after they had banned a Hearthstone player for making comments during a tournament regarding the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests.


2019 in video games, Top-rated games, Critically acclaimed games
Metacritic is an aggregator of video game journalism reviews. It generally considers expansions and re-releases as separate entities.


2019 in video games, Financial performance
SuperData Research estimated that the video game industry grew 4% in 2019, reaching $120.1 billion in global revenues. SuperData stated the market was dominated by mobile games which made up $64.4 billion, with personal computer games at $29.6 billion and console games at $15.4 billion.


2019 in video games, Financial performance
App Annie, which tracks all mobile app sales, estimated that mobile games accounted for 72% of the $120 billion spent on the various app stores in 2019, or $86 billion, with the potential to exceed $100 billion by 2020. Mobile game expenditures made up 56% of all video game-related revenues in 2019.


2019 in video games, Financial performance, Highest-grossing games
The following were 2019's top ten highest-grossing video games in terms of worldwide digital revenue (including digital purchases, microtransactions, free-to-play and pay-to-play) across all platforms (including mobile, PC and console platforms). The top ten highest-grossing digital games of the year were all free-to-play games, each grossing more than $1 billion worldwide in 2019. Six of the top ten highest-grossing games, including the top five titles, are published and/or owned by Chinese conglomerate Tencent.


2019 in video games, Financial performance, Best-selling games by country
The following were 2019's top ten best-selling video games by country, in terms of software units sold (excluding microtransactions and free-to-play titles) on PC and console platforms, for the United States, Japan, and United Kingdom.


2019 in video games, Hardware releases
The list of game-related hardware released in 2019 in North America.


2019 in video games, Game releases
Series with new installments in 2019 include Ace Combat, Age of Wonders, Bloodstained, Borderlands, Bubsy, Call of Duty, Contra, Crackdown, Crash Bandicoot, Dead or Alive, Devil May Cry, Digimon, Dr. Mario, Earth Defense Force, Far Cry, Final Fantasy, Fire Emblem, Gears of War, God Eater, Kingdom Hearts, Luigi's Mansion, Mario & Sonic, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, MediEvil, Metro, MLB The Show, Mortal Kombat, Need for Speed, No More Heroes, Onimusha, Persona, Pokémon, Rage, Resident Evil, Science Adventure, Shantae, Shenmue, Sonic the Hedgehog, Star Wars, Super Mario, Terminator, Tetris, The Legend of Zelda, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Tom Clancy's The Division, Total War, Trials, Tropico, Umihara Kawase, Vampire: The Masquerade,  Wolfenstein, WWE 2K, Yooka-Laylee, Yoshi, and Yu-Gi- Oh!.


2019 in volleyball
The following were volleyball-related events during 2019 throughout the world.


2019 in weightlifting
This article lists the main weightlifting events and their results for 2019.


2019 in women's association football
The following are the scheduled events of women's association football for 2019 throughout the world.


2019 in women's association football, National competitions
Confederations are ordered by number of slots awarded for the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup. Successful defending champions are marked in yellow.


2019 in women's road cycling
2019 in women's road cycling is about the 2019 women's bicycle races ruled by the UCI and the 2019 UCI Women's Teams.


2019 in women's road cycling, Single day races (1.1 and 1.2)
† The clock symbol denotes a race which takes the form of a one-day time trial.


2019 local electoral calendar
This local electoral calendar for 2019 lists the subnational elections held in 2019. Referendums, retention elections, and national by-elections (special elections) are also included.


2019 mass invasion of Russian polar bears
In February 2019, the Russian archipelago of Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean experienced  a mass invasion of polar bears. Dozens of polar bears were seen trying to enter homes, civic buildings, and inhabited areas. The Arkhangelsk Oblast authorities declared a state of emergency on the 16th of February 2019.


2019 mass invasion of Russian polar bears
According to the local report agency, at least 52 bears entered the area near Belushya Guba, the main settlement on the island. Footage shows the polar bears looking for food in the rubbish at a local dump. Polar bears cannot subsist on a garbage-based diet because of a lack of enough protein and fat.


2019 mass invasion of Russian polar bears
Local administrator Alexander Minayev said at least between 6 and 10 bears came into the settlement's territory. People were frightened and didn't want to leave their homes, so their planned daily routines  were stopped. "Parents are afraid to let the children go to school or kindergarten," Minayev said. He also said that "They literally chased people in the region". Zhigansha Musin, the head of the local administration said "There have never been so many polar bears in this area since 1983".


2019 mass invasion of Russian polar bears
Hunting polar bears and shooting them has been prohibited by law in Russia. Also, vehicle patrols and dogs weren't successful in deterring them. A team of experts had been dispatched to the Arctic region to remove polar bears coming into the inhabited area and its vicinity.


2019 mass invasion of Russian polar bears, Climate change effects
Russia's World Wildlife Fund said "Today, polar bears are entering human areas more frequently than in the past and climate change is the reason. Global warming is reducing sea-ice and this phenomenon forces polar bears to come to land in order to find new sources of food". Liz Greengrass, a director at the UK animal conservation charity Born Free Foundation told CNN that seals are the most popular food for polar bears, but global warming is shrinking their environment, so polar bears must change their food regime.


2019 mass invasion of Russian polar bears, Climate change effects
According to a 2013 study in the journal Nature, global warming is increasingly affecting the planet more than in the past. Model suggestions say that Arctic sea ice is declining at a rate of 13 percent per decade. Scientists believed this climate change is the main reason for the aggressive behavior of the polar bears.


2019 mass invasion of Russian polar bears, Aftermath
The local authorities have taken a number of safety measures, such as hunting down designated problem bears, securing a local school with fencing and sending military personnel to their posts by "special vehicles."


2019 measles outbreak in the Philippines
The 2019 Philippines measles outbreak began in early 2019. An outbreak of measles was officially declared in February 2019 in select administrative regions in Luzon and Visayas including Metro Manila by the Philippine government. The outbreak is attributed to lowered vaccination rates, from a high of 88% 10 to 15 years previous to 74% at the time of the outbreak, allegedly caused by the Dengvaxia controversy.


2019 measles outbreak in the Philippines, Epidemiology
The Department of Health (DOH) of the Philippines declared a measles outbreak in Metro Manila due to a 550% increase of the number of patients from January 1 to February 6, 2019, compared to figures of the equivalent period from 2018. Outbreaks were also officially declared in Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Western Visayas, Central Visayas. and Northern Mindanao. A joint report by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organization has stated in the report that the outbreak started much earlier in late-2017 in Mindanao.


2019 measles outbreak in the Philippines, Epidemiology
Metro Manila and Calabarzon being the most affected regions with at least a thousand cases each.


2019 measles outbreak in the Philippines, Epidemiology
The DOH has recorded at 8,443 cases from January 1 to February 18, 2019, with 135 of these cases resulting to deaths. On March 1, 2019, it was reported that there are at least 13,723 cases and 215 deaths recorded nationwide.


2019 measles outbreak in the Philippines, Epidemiology
By April 30, the DOH declared that the measles outbreak is already under control but remained hesitant in officially lifting the outbreak declaration. There are 31,056 cases and 415 deaths recorded from January 1 to April 13.


2019 measles outbreak in the Philippines, Cases
In connection with the measles outbreak, the Philippine government has been maintaining a tally of confirmed cases and deaths from measles nationwide, including in regions not officially experiencing a measles outbreak.


2019 measles outbreak in the Philippines, Cause
Vaccination against measles is available for free in government hospitals and health centers but there is a lowered trust in vaccination in the country. According to an opinion poll conducted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2018, 32 percent of the surveyed 1,500 Filipinos trusted vaccines. In the 2015 iteration of the poll, 93 percent of the respondents said they trusted vaccines. Health Secretary Francisco Duque III attributes the lowered trust on the government's immunization drive due to the Dengvaxia controversy.


2019 measles outbreak in the Philippines, Cause
The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said that the outbreak is caused by "failure of the health system" saying that the distribution of vaccines down to the barangay level has not worked properly. They cited that immunization rates in the country have been declining in the past 10 to 15 years with about 74% immunized at the time of the outbreak compared to a high of 88%; 10 or 15 years ago. UNICEF and the WHO has also attributed increase vaccine hesitancy in 2018 due to the Dengue vaccine controversy as a factor contributing to the outbreak. Statistical data from UNICEF, however, shows that decline in Measles vaccination began as early as 2014, four years before the Dengvaxia controversy happened.


2019 measles outbreak in the Philippines, Cause
As of March 1, 2019, 62 percent of all cases recorded at that time involved individuals who were not vaccinated against measles.


2019 measles outbreak in the Philippines, Response
The Department of Health released an informercial featuring boxer Manny Pacquiao in order encourage parents and guardians to get their children vaccinated against measles in response to the outbreak.


2019 measles outbreak in the Philippines, Response
Neighbouring Malaysia's state of Sabah through the Health and People Wellbeing Ministry working towards getting all children, especially stateless people to be vaccinated following the outbreak in their neighbour the Philippines.


2019 merger of CBS and Viacom
The 2019 merger of CBS Corporation and Viacom was announced on August 13, 2019, and was completed on December 4, 2019. The merger of equals reunited CBS Corporation and Viacom into a single company known as ViacomCBS after their separation from the first incarnation of Viacom in January 2006. Both companies were (and the merged entity continues to be) owned by theater company National Amusements.


2019 merger of CBS and Viacom, Background
The first incarnation of Viacom was created in 1952 as the television syndication division of CBS; it was spun off in 1971. In 1999, Viacom acquired its former parent, then named CBS Corporation (formerly Westinghouse Electric). In January 2006, the first Viacom was spun off into two entities, CBS Corporation and the second incarnation of Viacom.


2019 merger of CBS and Viacom, History, Early discussions of a merger (September 2016–September 2018)
Efforts to re-merge the two conglomerates began on September 29, 2016, when National Amusements sent a letter to Viacom and CBS encouraging a re-merger of the two companies. The proposal was later withdrawn on December 12 of that year.


2019 merger of CBS and Viacom, History, Early discussions of a merger (September 2016–September 2018)
On January 12, 2018, CNBC reported that Viacom had re-entered talks to merge back into CBS Corporation, after the merger plan of AT&T-Time Warner and Disney's acquisition of most 21st Century Fox assets were announced. Viacom and the CBS Corporation also faced heavy competition from companies such as Netflix and Amazon. Shortly afterward, it was reported that the combined company could be a suitor for acquiring the film studio Lionsgate. Viacom and Lionsgate were both interested in acquiring The Weinstein Company. Following the Weinstein effect, Viacom was listed as one of 22 potential buyers that were interested in acquiring TWC. They lost the bid, and on March 1, it was announced that Maria Contreras-Sweet would acquire all of TWC's assets for $500 million.


2019 merger of CBS and Viacom, History, Early discussions of a merger (September 2016–September 2018)
On March 30, 2018, CBS made an all-stock offer slightly below Viacom's market value, insisting that its existing leadership, including long-time chairman and CEO Les Moonves, oversee the re-combined company. Viacom rejected the offer as too low, requesting a $2.8 billion increase and that Bob Bakish be maintained as president and COO under Moonves. These conflicts had resulted from Shari Redstone seeking more control over CBS and its leadership.


2019 merger of CBS and Viacom, History, Early discussions of a merger (September 2016–September 2018)
Eventually, on May 14, 2018, CBS sued its and Viacom's parent company National Amusements and accused Redstone of abusing her voting power in the company and forcing a merger that was not supported by it or Viacom. CBS also accused Redstone of discouraging Verizon Communications from acquiring it, which could have been beneficial to its shareholders.


2019 merger of CBS and Viacom, History, Early discussions of a merger (September 2016–September 2018)
On May 23, 2018, Les Moonves explained that he considered the Viacom channels to be an "albatross," and while he favored more content for CBS All Access, he believed that there were better deals for CBS than the Viacom deal, such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Lionsgate or Sony Pictures. Moonves also considered Bakish a threat because he did not want an ally of Redstone as a board member of the combined company.


2019 merger of CBS and Viacom, History, Talks following Les Moonves’ resignation (September 2018–August 2019)
On September 9, 2018, Les Moonves exited CBS following multiple accusations of sexual assault. National Amusements agreed to make no proposal of a CBS-Viacom merger for at least two years after the date of the settlement.


2019 merger of CBS and Viacom, History, Talks following Les Moonves’ resignation (September 2018–August 2019)
On May 30, 2019, CNBC reported that CBS Corporation and Viacom would explore merger discussions in mid-June. CBS's board of directors was revamped with people who were open to merging; the re-merger was made possible with the resignation of Moonves, who had opposed all merger attempts. The talks had started following rumors of CBS acquiring Starz from Lionsgate. Reports said that CBS and Viacom reportedly set August 8 as an informal deadline for reaching an agreement to recombine the two media companies. CBS announced to acquire Viacom as part of the re-merger deal for up to $15.4 billion.


2019 merger of CBS and Viacom, History, Talks following Les Moonves’ resignation (September 2018–August 2019)
On August 2, 2019, it was reported that CBS and Viacom agreed to merge back into one entity. Both companies came to an agreement on the management team for the merger, with Bob Bakish serving as CEO of the combined company with president and acting CEO of CBS, Joseph Ianniello, overseeing CBS-branded assets. On August 7, CBS and Viacom separately reported their quarterly earnings as the talks about the re-merger continued.


2019 merger of CBS and Viacom, History, Completion (August 2019–December 2019)
On August 13, 2019, CBS and Viacom officially announced their merger; the combined company is named ViacomCBS; Shari Redstone serves as the chairwoman of the new company. Upon the merger agreement, Viacom and CBS jointly announced they expected the transaction to close by the end of 2019, pending regulatory and shareholder approvals. Such mergers require approval by the Federal Trade Commission.


2019 merger of CBS and Viacom, History, Completion (August 2019–December 2019)
On October 28, 2019, the merger was approved by National Amusements, which then announced the deal would close in early December; the recombined company will trade its shares on NASDAQ under the symbols "VIAC" and "VIACA" after CBS Corporation delist its shares on the New York Stock Exchange. On November 25, 2019, Viacom and CBS announced that the merger would close on December 4, and its shares began to trading on NASDAQ on December 5. The merger officially closed on December 4, 2019.


2019 mid-year rugby union internationals
The 2019 mid-year rugby union internationals (also known as the summer internationals in the Northern Hemisphere) are international rugby union matches that are mostly played in the Southern Hemisphere during the June international window.


2019 mid-year rugby union internationals
The matches are part of World Rugby's global rugby calendar (2012–19) that includes test matches between touring Northern Hemisphere nations and home Southern Hemisphere nations. In addition, the global calendar gives Tier 2 nations the opportunity to play Tier 1 nations outside the November International Window, increasing competitiveness from the Tier 2 sides ahead of the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan.


2019 national electoral calendar
This national electoral calendar for 2019 lists the national/federal direct elections that were held in 2019 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included.


2019 national electoral calendar, Indirect elections
The following indirect elections of heads of state and the upper houses of bicameral legislatures took place through votes in elected lower houses, unicameral legislatures, or electoral colleges:


2019 national road cycling championships
The 2019 national road cycling championships will be held throughout the year and are organised by the UCI member federations. They began in New Zealand with the time trial event (both men and women) on 4 January, as is tradition.


2019 national road cycling championships, Jerseys
The winner of each national championship wears the national jersey in all their races for the next year in the respective discipline, apart from the World Championships and the Olympics, or unless they are wearing a category leader's jersey in a stage race. Most national champion jerseys tend to represent a country's flag or use the colours from it. Jerseys may also feature traditional sporting colours of a country that are not derived from a national flag, such as the green and gold on the jerseys of Australian national champions.


2019 nine-pin bowling World Team Championships
The 2019 nine-pin bowling World Team Championships was the eighth edition of the team championships and held in Rokycany, Czech Republic, from 16 May to 26 May 2019.


2019 nine-pin bowling World Team Championships
In men's tournament Serbia has secured gold medal, while in women's tournament world champion title was captured by Croatia.


2019 nine-pin bowling World Team Championships – Men's tournament
The men's tournament at the 2019 nine-pin bowling World Team Championships will be held in Rokycany, Czech Republic, from 16 to 26 May 2019.


2019 nine-pin bowling World Team Championships – Men's tournament
Serbia captured their fifth title by defeating Germany 6–2 in the final match. Bronze was secured by Hungary who beat Croatia 6–2.


2019 nine-pin bowling World Team Championships – Women's tournament
The women's tournament at the 2019 nine-pin bowling World Team Championships will be held in Rokycany, Czech Republic, from 18 to 26 May 2019.


2019 nine-pin bowling World Team Championships – Women's tournament
Croatia captured their second title by defeating Hungary 5–3 in the final match. Bronze was secured by Germany who beat host Czechia 7–1.


2019 opening of regular sessions of the National Congress of Argentina
The 2019 opening of regular sessions of the National Congress of Argentina took place on March 1, 2019. It was a speech delivered by president Mauricio Macri at the National Congress of Argentina.


2019 opening of regular sessions of the National Congress of Argentina, Contents and delivery, Economy
Mauricio Macri acknowledged that the economy was not doing well, and attributed it to the 2018 capital flight, the drought that reduced the soy exports, and the Notebook scandal. He also pointed that inflation decreased and that 700,000 new jobs were created.


2019 opening of regular sessions of the National Congress of Argentina, Contents and delivery, Crime
Mauricio Macri pointed a bill to amend the Penal Code of Argentina, considering that the current one would be outdated and of limited use. He also proposed to reduce the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 15 years. He also praised the work of his government against crime and illegal drug trade.


2019 opening of regular sessions of the National Congress of Argentina, Responses
The opposing legislators placed banners in protest at their seats. Kirchnerite legislators used banners proposing the hashtag "Hay otro camino" (Spanish: "There is another way"), in reference to the 2019 Argentine general election. Left wing parties used their banners to protest the IMF loan, the firings at some firms, and the role of the United States in the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis.


2019 opinion polling on the Donald Trump administration
This is a list of opinion polls taken on the presidency of Donald Trump in 2019. Polls throughout the year showed that more disapproved of Trump than approved of him, generally by a margin of between five and fifteen percentage points. The polls also showed that the margin may have be stronger or weaker in some states, when compared with the national polls.


2019 protests in Iran
The 2019 protests in Iran was a series of peaceful rallies and nationwide strikes organised by activists and employees, and unemployed people across Iran in early-2019, as part of the 2018-2019 Iranian general strikes and protests.


2019 protests in Iran, Background
Hardships and protests are frequent in Iran, especially with sanctions, deals, agreements, tensions, interferences into other conflicts (the Syrian Civil War and Iraq), tensions among the economy, civilian issues and governmental problems. The 2017-2018 Iranian protests was a starter of protest movements and unrest that frequently hit the nation, colliding with the 2018-2019 Iranian general strikes and protests.


2019 protests in Iran, Protests
January:Farmers gathered in Isfahan on 2 January to protest the lack of water in the Zayanderud. The protestors were met by security forces who fired tear gas and live rounds into the air to disperse the crowds. On 22 January, retirees gathered in front of the parliament building in Tehran and chanted "Torture and forced confessions, have no effect anymore". Two days later, on 24 January, teachers gathered in five provinces to protest their current living and teaching conditions.


2019 protests in Iran, Protests
February:On 14 February, teachers in Ardabil, Mashhad, Marivan, Sanandaj, Orumieh, and Kermanshah gathered outside of the offices of the Ministry of Education and protested the arrest of teachers, and unfavourable living and teaching conditions. On the same day a teacher's rights activist was arrested in Sanandaj.


2019 protests in Iran, Protests
On 26 February, railway workers in Tabriz and Shahroud went on strike. Earlier that day, a large group of retirees gathered in front of the parliament building in Tehran to protest low pensions. Protesters chanted "no nation has seen such a dishonourable parliament" and "shame on those who claim to be the upholders of justice".


2019 protests in Iran, Protests
March:On 3 March, teachers across Iran started a three-day nationwide sit in, in protest to low living wages and unfavourable job conditions. This is the third sit in this year by teachers across Iran. The same day, railway workers in Andimeshk went on strike to protest unpaid wages and blocked the Ahvaz to Mashhad train from running its route. The families of Esmail Bakhshi and Sepideh Gholian also gathered in front of the judiciary in Shush to protest their arrest.


2019 protests in Iran, Protests
The following day on 4 March, mobile bazars in Tehran, Tabriz, Ahvaz, Mashhad, and Isfahan went on strike to protest the new initiative started by the Ministry of Communications which prevents them from registering the smartphones they want to sell.


2019 protests in Iran, Protests
On 5 March, workers of Chamshir Dam in Gachsaran went on strike and gathered outside the governorate to protest 14 months of unpaid wages. On the same day, workers of the Ministry of Agriculture gathered in front of the parliament building in Tehran and protested their low wages. Railway strikes also continued in Tabriz and Lorestan province.


2019 protests in Iran, Protests
Strikers was seen protesting in Mashhad, Khorramshahr and Tehran and multiple arrests was made amid protests and widespread anger over deteriorating conditions and problems.


2019 protests in Iran, Protests
May:On 1 May (May day), workers, students, and teachers gathered in front of the parliament building in Tehran to protest poor economic conditions, and lack of individual rights. Protesters chanted "Workers, teachers, students, unite" and "High costs and inflation are hurting people's lives". The security forces clamped down on the protests and 40 demonstrators were arrested.


2019 protests in Iran, Protests
On 2 May, teachers across 13 provinces in Iran protested their poor work and living conditions. The security forces arrested at least 3 teachers in Tehran.


2019 protests in Iran, Protests
On 3-5 May, teachers staged demonstrations and rallies all across Iran, notably Mashhad, where teacher’s unions led mass protests demanding the release of political prisoners and teachers arrested during previous strike movement and denounced the suppression of teachers strikes. Protesters were arrested.


2019 protests in Iran, Protests
June-July:On 23 June, protestors in Kermanshah can be seen wearing yellow vests in inspiration by the French Yellow vests movement. Workers and employees was seen also holding placards and staging rallies over the next few days in Tehran and Alborz province against unpaid wages. In late-July, worker demonstrations was staged against unpaid wages.


2019 railway strike in Sri Lanka
2019 railway strike in Sri Lanka was an industrial dispute which happened for 12 consecutive days between the Sri Lanka Railways and the Government of Sri Lanka over the salary increments. It was considered to be one of the longest railway strikes in Sri Lanka since 2008. The strike began in mid September from midnight and ended up on 7 October 2019.


2019 railway strike in Sri Lanka
On 3 October 2019, Sri Lankan government issued an ordinary gazette declaring the railway service as an essential service. It also meant that the leave of government employees were officially cancelled with immediate effect.


2019 railway strike in Sri Lanka
On 7 October 2019, the strike action was called off following the discussions with the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation.


2019 railway strike in Sri Lanka, Background
Sri Lanka Railways is one of the most accessible, cheapest and significant modes of transportation modes in Sri Lanka. However the railway transport in the country has been significantly affected over the years due to the frequent protests held by the labourers of the Railway Department demanding for higher salaries. These issues have often caused severe difficulties for the general public to utilise the railway transport system. Railway transport is the most inefficient transport mode in Sri Lanka as the Sri Lanka Railways often run with severe losses.


2019 railway strike in Sri Lanka, Response
As a remedy to the strike action, about 3000 railway employees who were on strike were suspended. The Sri Lanka Railways was also reported to have lost Rs 15 million in income each day due to the strikes. The rail strikes were highly criticised by the general public who prefer the relevant transport as a main transport mode.


2019 reasons of the Supreme Court of Canada
The table below lists the decisions (known as reasons) delivered from the bench by the Supreme Court of Canada during 2019. The table illustrates what reasons were filed by each justice in each case, and which justices joined each reason.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units
Effective 20 May 2019, the 144th anniversary of the Metre Convention, the SI base units were redefined in agreement with the International System of Quantities. In the redefinition, four of the seven SI base units – the kilogram, ampere, kelvin, and mole – were redefined by setting exact numerical values when expressed in SI units for the Planck constant (h), the elementary electric charge (e), the Boltzmann constant (kB), and the Avogadro constant (NA), respectively. The second, metre, and candela were already defined by physical constants and were not subject to correction to their definitions.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units
The new definitions aimed to improve the SI without changing the value of any units, ensuring continuity with existing measurements. In November 2018, the 26th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) unanimously approved these changes, which the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) had proposed earlier that year after determining that previously agreed conditions for the change had been met. These conditions were satisfied by a series of experiments that measured the constants to high accuracy relative to the old SI definitions, and were the culmination of decades of research.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units
The previous major change of the metric system occurred in 1960 when the International System of Units (SI) was formally published. At this time the metre was redefined: the definition was changed from the prototype of the metre to a certain number of wavelengths of a spectral line of a krypton-86 radiation, making it derivable from universal natural phenomena. The kilogram remained defined by a physical prototype, leaving it the only artefact upon which the SI unit definitions depend.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units
At this time the SI, as a coherent system, was constructed around seven base units, powers of which were used to construct all other units. With the 2019 redefinition, the SI is constructed around seven defining constants, allowing all units to be constructed directly from these constants. The designation of base units is retained but is no longer essential to define the SI units.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units
The metric system was originally conceived as a system of measurement that was derivable from unchanging phenomena, but practical limitations necessitated the use of artefacts – the prototype of the metre and prototype of the kilogram – when the metric system was introduced in France in 1799. Although it was designed for long-term stability, the masses of the prototype kilogram and its secondary copies have shown small variations relative to each other over time; they are not thought to be adequate for the increasing accuracy demanded by science, prompting a search for a suitable replacement.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units
The definitions of some units were defined by measurements that are difficult to precisely realise in a laboratory, such as the kelvin, which was defined in terms of the triple point of water. With the 2019 redefinition, the SI became wholly derivable from natural phenomena with most units being based on fundamental physical constants.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units
A number of authors have published criticisms of the revised definitions; their criticisms include the premise that the proposal failed to address the impact of breaking the link between the definition of the dalton and the definitions of the kilogram, the mole, and the Avogadro constant.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Background
The basic structure of the SI was developed over about 170 years between 1791 and 1960. Since 1960, technological advances have made it possible to address weaknesses in the SI such as the dependence on a physical artefact to define the kilogram.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Background, Development of SI
During the early years of the French Revolution, the leaders of the French National Constituent Assembly decided to introduce a new system of measurement that was based on the principles of logic and natural phenomena. The metre was defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the north pole to the equator and the kilogram as the mass of one thousandth of a cubic metre of pure water. Although these definitions were chosen to avoid ownership of the units, they could not be measured with sufficient convenience or precision to be of practical use. Instead, realisations were created in the form of the mètre des Archives and kilogramme des Archives which were a "best attempt" at fulfilling these principles.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Background, Development of SI
By 1875, use of the metric system had become widespread in Europe and in Latin America; that year, twenty industrially developed nations met for the Convention of the Metre, which led to the signing of the Treaty of the Metre, under which three bodies were set up to take custody of the international prototypes of the kilogram and the metre, and to regulate comparisons with national prototypes. They were:


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Background, Development of SI
The 1st CGPM (1889) formally approved the use of 40 prototype metres and 40 prototype kilograms made by the British firm Johnson Matthey as the standards mandated by the Convention of the Metre. The prototypes Metre No. 6 and Kilogram KIII  were designated as the international prototype of the metre and the kilogram, respectively; the CGPM retained other copies as working copies, and the rest were distributed to member states for use as their national prototypes. About once every 40 years, the national prototypes were compared with and recalibrated against the international prototype.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Background, Development of SI
In 1921 the Convention of the Metre was revised and the mandate of the CGPM was extended to provide standards for all units of measure, not just mass and length. In the ensuing years, the CGPM took on responsibility for providing standards of electrical current (1946), luminosity (1946), temperature (1948), time (1956), and molar mass (1971). The 9th CGPM in 1948 instructed the CIPM "to make recommendations for a single practical system of units of measurement, suitable for adoption by all countries adhering to the Metre Convention". The recommendations based on this mandate were presented to the 11th CGPM (1960), where they were formally accepted and given the name "Système International d'Unités" and its abbreviation "SI".


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Background, Impetus for change
There is a precedent for changing the underlying principles behind the definition of the SI base units; the 11th CGPM (1960) defined the SI metre in terms of the wavelength of krypton-86 radiation, replacing the pre-SI metre bar, and the 13th CGPM (1967) replaced the original definition of the second, which was based on Earth's average rotation from 1750 to 1892, with a definition based on the frequency of the radiation emitted or absorbed with a transition between two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom. The 17th CGPM (1983) replaced the 1960 definition of the metre with one based on the second by giving an exact definition of the speed of light in units of metres per second.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Background, Impetus for change
Since their manufacture, drifts of up to 2×10−8 kilograms per year in the national prototype kilograms relative to the international prototype of the kilogram (IPK) have been detected. There was no way of determining whether the national prototypes were gaining mass or whether the IPK was losing mass. Newcastle University metrologist Peter Cumpson has since identified mercury vapour absorption or carbonaceous contamination as possible causes of this drift. At the 21st meeting of the CGPM (1999), national laboratories were urged to investigate ways of breaking the link between the kilogram and a specific artefact.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Background, Impetus for change
Metrologists investigated several alternative approaches to redefining the kilogram based on fundamental physical constants. Among others, the Avogadro project and the development of the Kibble balance (known as the "watt balance" before 2016) promised methods of indirectly measuring mass with very high precision. These projects provided tools that enable alternative means of redefining the kilogram.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Background, Impetus for change
A report published in 2007 by the Consultative Committee for Thermometry (CCT) to the CIPM noted that their current definition of temperature has proved to be unsatisfactory for temperatures below 20 K and for temperatures above 1300 K. The committee took the view that the Boltzmann constant provided a better basis for temperature measurement than did the triple point of water because it overcame these difficulties.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Background, Impetus for change
At its 23rd meeting (2007), the CGPM mandated the CIPM to investigate the use of natural constants as the basis for all units of measure rather than the artefacts that were then in use. The following year this was endorsed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). At a meeting of the CCU held in Reading, United Kingdom, in September 2010, a resolution and draft changes to the SI brochure that were to be presented to the next meeting of the CIPM in October 2010 were agreed to in principle.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Background, Impetus for change
The CIPM meeting of October 2010 found "the conditions set by the General Conference at its 23rd meeting have not yet been fully met. For this reason the CIPM does not propose a revision of the SI at the present time". The CIPM, however, presented a resolution for consideration at the 24th CGPM (17–21 October 2011) to agree to the new definitions in principle, but not to implement them until the details had been finalised. This resolution was accepted by the conference, and in addition the CGPM moved the date of the 25th meeting forward from 2015 to 2014.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Background, Impetus for change
At the 25th meeting on 18 to 20 November 2014, it was found that "despite [progress in the necessary requirements] the data do not yet appear to be sufficiently robust for the CGPM to adopt the revised SI at its 25th meeting", thus postponing the revision to the next meeting in 2018. Measurements accurate enough to meet the conditions were available in 2017 and the redefinition was adopted at the 26th CGPM (13–16 November 2018).


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Redefinition
Following the successful 1983 redefinition of the metre in terms of an exact numerical value for the speed of light, the BIPM's Consultative Committee for Units (CCU) recommended and the BIPM proposed that four further constants of nature should be defined to have exact values. These are


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Redefinition
These constants are described in the 2006 version of the SI manual but in that version, the latter three are defined as "constants to be obtained by experiment" rather than as "defining constants". The redefinition retains unchanged the numerical values associated with the following constants of nature:


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Redefinition
The seven definitions above are rewritten below with the derived units (joule, coulomb, hertz, lumen, and watt) expressed in terms of the seven base units: second, metre, kilogram, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela, according to the 9th SI Brochure. In the list that follows, the symbol sr stands for the dimensionless unit steradian.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Redefinition
As part of the redefinition, the International Prototype of the Kilogram was retired and definitions of the kilogram, the ampere, and the kelvin were replaced. The definition of the mole was revised. These changes have the effect of redefining the SI base units, though the definitions of the SI derived units in terms of the base units remain the same.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions
Following the CCU proposal, the texts of the definitions of all of the base units were either refined or rewritten, changing the emphasis from explicit-unit to explicit-constant-type definitions. Explicit-unit-type definitions define a unit in terms of a specific example of that unit; for example, in 1324 Edward II defined the inch as being the length of three barleycorns and from 1889 to 2019 the kilogram was defined as the mass of the Iinternational Prototype of the Kilogram.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions
In explicit-constant definitions, a constant of nature is given a specified value and the definition of the unit emerges as a consequence; for example, in 1983, the speed of light was defined as exactly 299792458 metres per second. The length of the metre could be derived because the second had been already independently defined. The previous and 2019 definitions are given below.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Second
The new definition of the second is effectively the same as the previous one, the only difference being that the conditions under which the definition applies are more rigorously defined.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Second
The second may be expressed directly in terms of the defining constants:


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Metre
The new definition of the metre is effectively the same as the previous one, the only difference being that the additional rigour in the definition of the second propagated to the metre.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Metre
The metre may be expressed directly in terms of the defining constants:


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Kilogram
The definition of the kilogram changed fundamentally; the previous definition defined the kilogram as the mass of the international prototype of the kilogram, which is an artefact rather than a constant of nature. The new definition relates the kilogram to, amongst things, the equivalent mass of the energy of a photon given its frequency, via the Planck constant.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Kilogram
For illustration, an earlier proposed redefinition that is equivalent to this 2019 definition is: "The kilogram is the mass of a body at rest whose equivalent energy equals the energy of a collection of photons whose frequencies sum to [1.356392489652×1050] hertz."


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Kilogram
The kilogram may be expressed directly in terms of the defining constants:


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Ampere
The ampere, symbol A, is the SI unit of electric current. The definition of the ampere underwent a major revision. The previous definition, which is difficult to realise with high precision in practice, was replaced by a definition that is easier to realise.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Ampere
The ampere may be expressed directly in terms of the defining constants as:


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Ampere
For illustration, this is equivalent to defining one coulomb to be an exact specified multiple of the elementary charge.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Ampere
Because the previous definition contains a reference to force, which has the dimensions MLT−2, it follows that in the previous SI the kilogram, metre, and second – the base units representing these dimensions – had to be defined before the ampere could be defined. Other consequences of the previous definition were that in SI the value of vacuum permeability (μ0) was fixed at exactly 4π×10−7 H⋅m−1. Because the speed of light in vacuum (c) is also fixed, it followed from the relationship


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Ampere
that the vacuum permittivity (ε0) had a fixed value, and from


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Ampere
that the impedance of free space (Z0) likewise had a fixed value.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Ampere
A consequence of the revised definition is that the ampere no longer depends on the definitions of the kilogram and the metre; it does, however, still depend on the definition of the second. In addition, the numerical values when expressed in SI units of the vacuum permeability, vacuum permittivity, and impedance of free space, which were exact before the redefinition, are subject to experimental error after the redefinition. For example, the numerical value of the vacuum permeability has a relative uncertainty equal to that of the experimental value of the fine-structure constant α{\displaystyle \alpha }. The CODATA 2018 value for the relative standard uncertainty of α{\displaystyle \alpha } is 1.5×10−10.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Kelvin
The definition of the kelvin underwent a fundamental change. Rather than using the triple point of water to fix the temperature scale, the new definition uses the energy equivalent as given by Boltzmann's equation.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Kelvin
The kelvin may be expressed directly in terms of the defining constants as:


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Mole
The previous definition of the mole linked it to the kilogram. The revised definition breaks that link by making a mole a specific number of entities of the substance in question.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Mole
The mole may be expressed directly in terms of the defining constants as:


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Mole
One consequence of this change is that the previously defined relationship between the mass of the 12C atom, the dalton, the kilogram, and the Avogadro constant is no longer valid. One of the following had to change:


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Mole
The wording of the 9th SI Brochure implies that the first statement remains valid, which means the second is no longer true. The molar mass constant, while still with great accuracy remaining 1 g/mol, is no longer exactly equal to that.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Mole
Appendix 2 to the 9th SI Brochure states that "the molar mass of carbon 12, M(12C), is equal to 0.012 kg⋅mol−1 within a relative standard uncertainty equal to that of the recommended value of NAh at the time this Resolution was adopted, namely 4.5×10−10, and that in the future its value will be determined experimentally", which makes no reference to the dalton and is consistent with either statement.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on base unit definitions, Candela
The new definition of the candela is effectively the same as the previous definition as dependent on other base units, with the result that the redefinition of the kilogram and the additional rigour in the definitions of the second and metre propagate to the candela.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on reproducibility
All seven of the SI base units will be defined in terms of defined constants and universal physical constants. Seven constants are needed to define the seven base units but there is not a direct correspondence between each specific base unit and a specific constant; except the second and the mole, more than one of the seven constants contributes to the definition of any given base unit.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on reproducibility
When the New SI was first designed, there were more than six suitable physical constants from which the designers could choose. For example, once length and time had been established, the universal gravitational constant G could, from a dimensional point of view, be used to define mass. In practice, G can only be measured with a relative uncertainty of the order of 10−5, which would have resulted in the upper limit of the kilogram's reproducibility being around 10−5 whereas the current international prototype of the kilogram can be measured with a reproducibility of 1.2 × 10−8.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Impact on reproducibility
The physical constants were chosen on the basis of minimal uncertainty associated with measuring the constant and the degree of independence of the constant in respect of other constants that were being used. Although the BIPM has developed a standard mise en pratique (practical technique) for each type of measurement, the mise en pratique used to make the measurement is not part of the measurement's definition – it is merely an assurance that the measurement can be done without exceeding the specified maximum uncertainty.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Acceptance
Much of the work done by the CIPM is delegated to consultative committees. The CIPM Consultative Committee for Units (CCU) has made the proposed changes while other committees have examined the proposal in detail and have made recommendations regarding their acceptance by the CGPM in 2014. The consultative committees have laid down a number of criteria that must be met before they will support the CCU's proposal, including:


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Acceptance
As of March 2011, the International Avogadro Coordination (IAC) group had obtained an uncertainty of 3.0×10−8 and NIST had obtained an uncertainty of 3.6×10−8 in their measurements. On 1 September 2012 the European Association of National Metrology Institutes (EURAMET) launched a formal project to reduce the relative difference between the Kibble balance and the silicon sphere approach to measuring the kilogram from (17±5)×10−8 to within 2×10−8.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Acceptance
As of March 2013 the proposed redefinition is known as the "New SI" but Mohr, in a paper following the CGPM proposal but predating the formal CCU proposal, suggested that because the proposed system makes use of atomic scale phenomena rather than macroscopic phenomena, it should be called the "Quantum SI System".


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Acceptance
As of the 2014 CODATA-recommended values of the fundamental physical constants published in 2016 using data collected until the end of 2014, all measurements met the CGPM's requirements, and the redefinition and the next CGPM quadrennial meeting in late 2018 could now proceed.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Acceptance
On 20 October 2017, the 106th meeting of the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) formally accepted a revised Draft Resolution A, calling for the redefinition of the SI, to be voted on at the 26th CGPM, The same day, in response to the CIPM's endorsement of the final values, the CODATA Task Group on Fundamental Constants published its 2017 recommended values for the four constants with uncertainties and proposed numerical values for the redefinition without uncertainty. The vote, which was held on 16 November 2018 at the 26th GCPM, was unanimous; all attending national representatives voted in favour of the revised proposal.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Concerns
In 2010, Marcus Foster of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) published a wide-ranging critique of the SI; he raised numerous issues ranging from basic issues such as the absence of the symbol "Ω" (Omega, for the ohm) from most Western computer keyboards to abstract issues such as inadequate formalism in the metrological concepts on which SI is based. The changes proposed in the new SI only addressed problems with the definition of the base units, including new definitions of the candela and the mole – units Foster argued are not true base units. Other issues raised by Foster fell outside the scope of the proposal.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Concerns, Explicit-unit and explicit-constant definitions
Concerns have been expressed that the use of explicit-constant definitions of the unit being defined that are not related to an example of its quantity will have many adverse effects. Although this criticism applies to the linking of the kilogram to the Planck constant h via a route that requires a knowledge of both special relativity and quantum mechanics, it does not apply to the definition of the ampere, which is closer to an example of its quantity than is the previous definition.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Concerns, Explicit-unit and explicit-constant definitions
Some observers have welcomed the change to base the definition of electric current on the charge of the electron rather than the previous definition of a force between two parallel, current-carrying wires; because the nature of the electromagnetic interaction between two bodies is somewhat different at the quantum electrodynamics level than at classical electrodynamic levels, it is considered inappropriate to use classical electrodynamics to define quantities that exist at quantum electrodynamic levels.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Concerns, Mass and the Avogadro constant
When the scale of the divergence between the IPK and national kilogram prototypes was reported in 2005, a debate began about whether the kilogram should be defined in terms of the mass of the silicon-28 atom or by using the Kibble balance. The mass of a silicon atom could be determined using the Avogadro project and using the Avogadro constant, it could be linked directly to the kilogram. Concerns that the authors of the proposal had failed to address the impact of breaking the link between the mole, kilogram, dalton, and the Avogadro constant (NA) have also been expressed. This direct link has caused many to argue that the mole is not a true physical unit but, according to the Swedish philosopher Johansson, a "scaling factor".


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Concerns, Mass and the Avogadro constant
The 8th edition of the SI Brochure defines the dalton in terms of the mass of an atom of 12C. It defines the Avogadro constant in terms of this mass and the kilogram, making it determined by experiment. The proposal fixes the Avogadro constant and the 9th SI Brochure retains the definition of dalton in terms of 12C, with the effect that the link between the dalton and the kilogram will be broken.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Concerns, Mass and the Avogadro constant
In 1993, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) approved the use of the dalton as an alternative to the unified atomic mass unit with the qualification that the CGPM had not given its approval. This approval has since been given.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Concerns, Mass and the Avogadro constant
Following the proposal to redefine the mole by fixing the value of the Avogadro constant, Brian Leonard of the University of Akron, writing in Metrologia, proposed that the dalton (Da) be redefined such that NA = (g/Da) mol−1, but that the unified atomic mass unit (mu) retain its current definition based on the mass of 12C, ceasing to exactly equal the dalton. This would result in the dalton and the atomic mass unit potentially differing from each other with a relative uncertainty of the order of 10−10. The 9th SI Brochure, however, defines both the dalton (Da) and the unified atomic mass unit (u) as exactly 1/12 of the mass of a free carbon-12 atom and not in relation to the kilogram, with the effect that the above equation will be inexact.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Concerns, Temperature
Different temperature ranges need different measurement methods. Room temperature can be measured by means of expansion and contraction of a liquid in a thermometer but high temperatures are often associated with colour of blackbody radiation. Wojciech T. Chyla, approaching the structure of SI from a philosophical point of view in the Journal of the Polish Physical Society, argued that temperature is not a real base unit but is an average of the thermal energies of the individual particles that comprise the body concerned. He noted that in many theoretical papers, temperature is represented by the quantities Θ or β where


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Concerns, Temperature
and k is the Boltzmann constant. Chyla acknowledged, however, that in the macroscopic world, temperature plays the role of a base unit because much of the theory of thermodynamics is based on temperature.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Concerns, Temperature
The Consultative Committee for Thermometry, part of the International Committee for Weights and Measures, publishes a mise en pratique (practical technique), last updated in 1990, for measuring temperature. At very low and at very high temperatures it often links energy to temperature via the Boltzmann constant.


2019 redefinition of the SI base units, Concerns, Luminous intensity
Foster argued that "luminous intensity [the candela] is not a physical quantity, but a photobiological quantity that exists in human perception", questioning whether the candela should be a base unit. Before the 1979 decision to define photometric units in terms of luminous flux (power) rather than luminous intensities of standard light sources, there was already doubt whether there should be still a separate base unit for photometry. Furthermore, there was unanimous agreement that the lumen was now more fundamental than the candela. However, for the sake of continuity the candela was kept as base unit.


2019 service delivery protests
The 2019 service delivery protests refers to a series of protests and civil disturbances taking place across urban areas of South Africa related to poor service delivery that started in Alexandra on 3 April 2019.


2019 service delivery protests
After starting in Alexandra on 3 April the protestors marched to the wealthy nearby neighbourhood of Sandton five days later to gain more attention. On 9 April the trade union SAFTU stated their support for the protests and called on other areas in Gauteng province to join. By 11 April 2019 the protests had spread to other major cities in the rest of the country. Other than Alexandra protests occurred in Hammanskraal, Roodepoort, Vereeniging, Kroonstad, Blackheath, Tshwane, Bekkersdal, Orange Grove, Nomzamo Lingelethu East, Bergville, Bekkersdal, Caledon, Eersteriver, Rus-ter-Vaal, Khayelitsha, Riverlea, and Soweto.


2019 service delivery protests
The major political parties traded accusations over the cause of the riots. The African National Congress (ANC) accused the Democratic Alliance  (DA) of not effectively delivering services to the protesting communities and the DA made a counter accusation that it was ANC governance in Johannesburg two years before was the root cause of poor service delivery in Alexandra. The protests were openly supported by the trade union SAFTU who called on other areas to join the protests. The DA and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) accused the ANC of instigating and spreading the protests to discredit them in the run up to the 2019 South African general election.


2019 service delivery protests
Notable South African academic Steven Friedman, criticised media coverage of the protests for "denigrat[ing] poor people by offering a distorted picture of their lives" and supporting politically motivated narratives that the protests were incited by political parties instead of being driven by genuine grievances.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela
During the presidential crisis between the Venezuelan governments of Nicolás Maduro and Juan Guaidó, a coalition of Colombia, Brazil, the United States and the Netherlands attempted to bring essential goods as a response to shortages in Venezuela. The three main bases used for the operation are: the Colombian city of Cúcuta, the Brazilian state of Roraima, (specifically Boa Vista and Pacaraima), and the island of Curaçao, of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela
Shortages in Venezuela have occurred since the presidency of Hugo Chávez, with the country experiencing a scarcity rate of 24.7% in January 2008. Shortages became commonplace in the country in 2012. Since Maduro attained the presidency in 2013, he has denied that there was a humanitarian crisis in the country and refused international aid, making conditions in Venezuela worse. Maduro blamed the shortages on an economic war being waged by foreign adversaries, such as the United States, and claims that the problems in Venezuela are due to the economic sanctions against the state-run oil company PDVSA.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela
Guaidó and Miguel Pizarro made partial delivery of the first shipment of humanitarian aid to the Association of Health Centers (ASSOVEC) on 11 February 2019.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela
On 23 February 2019, a joint operation from all coalition countries by land and sea attempted to deliver humanitarian aid to Venezuela. At the Colombia–Venezuela border, the caravans were tear-gassed or shot at with rubber bullets by Venezuelan personnel as they crossed bridges and ultimately blocked. According to a report released by the Office of the Inspector General at the U.S. Agency for International Development only 8 out of 368 tons of aid reached the country. In a December 2019 survey by Venezuelan pollster Meganalisis, 85.5% of respondents said that they did not receive support from international humanitarian aid, 7.9% said they did receive aid and 6.5% were unsure if they received humanitarian aid.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, Shortages in Venezuela
The National Assembly of Venezuela, with an opposition majority, declared a "humanitarian health crisis" on 24 January 2016, in view of "the serious shortage of medicines, medical supplies and deterioration of the humanitarian infrastructure", demanding from the government of Nicolás Maduro "guarantee immediately access to the list of essential medicines that are basic, indispensable and imprescindible and must be accessible at all times".


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, Shortages in Venezuela
In a September 2017 Al Jazeera interview with president of the Constituent Assembly Delcy Rodríguez, she stated, "I have denied and continue denying that Venezuela has a humanitarian crisis". As a result, international intervention in Venezuela would not be justified. She also described statements by Venezuelans calling for international assistance as "treasonous".


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, Shortages in Venezuela
On 18 October 2018, the United States sent the USNS Comfort hospital ship to South America to assist those affected by the Venezuelan migration crisis. The main goal was to relieve health systems in neighboring countries which faced the arrival of thousands of Venezuelan migrants. Three months later on 29 January 2019, the United States announced its intention to open a humanitarian corridor in Venezuela.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, Shortages in Venezuela
In a February 2019 BBC News interview with correspondent Orla Guerin, President Maduro has stated that "Venezuela is not a country of famine. It has very high levels of nutrients and access to food". He also claimed that the United States was intending to create a humanitarian crisis in order to justify a military intervention there. Joint studies shared that same month by ENCOVI, a group of researchers from Andrés Bello Catholic University, Central University of Venezuela and Simón Bolívar University, showed that in Venezuelan households, multidimensional poverty affected 51%, 80% suffered from food insecurity and 90% did not have an income to purchase any food.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, Shortages in Venezuela, Creation of the coalition
On 2 February 2019, Juan Guaidó, the National Assembly-declared acting president, announced the existence of a "humanitarian aid coalition" that comes from Colombia, Brazil and a Caribbean island.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, Shortages in Venezuela, Creation of the coalition
On 5 February 2019 the foreign ministers of the United States, Brazil and Colombia met in the White House, in which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John R. Bolton were also present to discuss the issue of possible humanitarian aid. In their official message they showed that the opposition government of Guaidó was willing to support them in the land entry to Venezuela.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, Shortages in Venezuela, Creation of the coalition
Guaidó called the operation a test of the military: "In a few weeks they will have to choose if they let much needed aid into the country, or if they side with Nicolas Maduro." Guaidó also warned that the Maduro administration had plans to "steal the products for humanitarian purposes that entered the country". This included plans to distribute these products through the government's food distribution program CLAP—a program from which, according to the 2017 Venezuelan Attorney General and Mexican prosecutors, Maduro personally profits.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, Shortages in Venezuela, VoluntariosXVenezuela
In mid-February, Guaidó reported that a web page called www.voluntariosxvenezuela.com had been set up for the registration of any person who wanted to volunteer to enter the humanitarian aid planned for 23 February. Days later, in the act of swearing in of thousands of volunteers present in the parking lot of the headquarters of the newspaper El Nacional, Guaidó indicated that in "a few hours" some 600,000 Venezuelans had already registered; in addition, several guilds among them belonging to the transport and health sectors, demonstrated at the event to show their support for the movement.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, Shortages in Venezuela, VoluntariosXVenezuela
Between 12 and 13 February, users of state-run internet provider CANTV that tried to access the website were victims of phishing schemes. This manipulation was denounced as a technique to identify dissidents to the government. Following the phishing incident, the official site was completely blocked for CANTV users on 16 February.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, February 2019 effort
According to France 24, Guaidó has made bringing humanitarian aid to the "hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who could die if aid does not arrive" a priority, and a test of the military's allegiance. He also requested aid from the United Nations. Guaidó said Venezuela's neighbors, in a "global coalition to send aid to Venezuela", will help get humanitarian aid and medicine into the country; products will be shipped to neighboring ports and brought overland via convoys. Guaidó began to lead nationwide demonstrations in early February, demanding the entrance of humanitarian aid into Venezuela, with hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans protesting in support.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, February 2019 effort
The administration of Nicolás Maduro deployed police officers at all land borders beginning on 5 February; in response, the United States threatened to send military personnel to Colombia and Brazil to protect those in charge of delivering the aid. Shortly after the announcement that international humanitarian aid would enter via the Colombia–Venezuela border, PSUV politician and former elite policeman Freddy Bernal appeared at the border with members of the armed forces and the FAES.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, February 2019 effort
On 6 February, humanitarian aid from the United States arrived in Colombia, to be delivered and distributed in Venezuela. That same day, Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo hinted that the base of operations of humanitarian aid in Brazil would be Pacaraima. In parallel, the government of Nicolás Maduro blocked the Tienditas International Bridge with cargo containers, already closed since its completion in 2016, which connects Cúcuta and the Venezuelan municipality of Ureña.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, February 2019 effort
The next day, as the Colombian government transported cargo to Cúcuta, a group of Venezuelan refugees met them with support signs with the phrase "Ayuda humanitaria ya" ("Humanitarian aid now"). As the first trucks with aid, escorted by Colombian police, approached the blocked bridge on 7 February, human rights activists received them, and Venezuela's communications minister, Jorge Rodriguez said there was a plot between Colombia, the CIA and exiled Venezuelan politician Julio Borges to oust Maduro.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, February 2019 effort
While Guaidó attempted to secure international aid, Maduro shipped over 100 tons of aid to Cuba following a tornado that devastated Havana. Under case file SC-2017-003, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice of Venezuela in exile announced the authorization for the entry of an international military coalition to secure the entry and protection of humanitarian aid to Venezuela.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, February 2019 effort
Maduro voiced his opinions about why he had denied international aid, stating "With humanitarian aid they want to treat us like beggars ... in Venezuela we have the capacity to take care of our children and women. There is no humanitarian crisis here." In a later BBC interview, Maduro said, "[t]he Ku Klux Klan that governs the White House today wants to seize Venezuela" and that "Venezuela is not a country of famine. It has very high levels of nutrients and access to food."


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, February 2019 effort
As events unfolded, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez claimed that humanitarian aid provided by the United States was "carcinogenic" and part of a plot to kill Venezuelan citizens. She also claimed that "this so-called food from the United States aims to poison our population with chemicals" and described it as "biological weapons". USAID administrator Mark Green described the allegations as "absurd". Venezuelan deputy and medic José Manuel Olivares dismissed her claims, clarifying that "the aid has quality control and sanitary registry of Colombia, Brazil and the United States." Delcy's remarks were also dismissed by the United States, saying that the Maduro government "would go to any length to lie and deny reality".


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, February 2019 effort
Guaidó issued an 11-day ultimatum to the Venezuelan Armed Forces on 12 February, stating that humanitarian aid will enter Venezuela on 23 February and that the armed forces "will have to decide if it will be on the side of the Venezuelans and the Constitution or the usurper".


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, February 2019 effort
Leaders of Pemon groups stated on 9 February that they would not abide by Maduro's orders and would allow aid into Venezuela through its border with Brazil. Mayor Emilio Gonzalez of Gran Sabana stated that "Neither the National Guard not the government can stop this" while another Pemon leader Angel Paez stated "If humanitarian aid arrives and is prevented from entering, we will suspend the entry of government trucks too."


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, February 2019 effort
Former Amazonas governor Liborio Guarulla announced on 14 February that the humanitarian aid started entering in the Amazonas state through the Guainía, Atabapo and Orinoco rivers with help of NGO's, the Colombian government and indigenous organizations. A plane of the Brazilian Air Force carrying humanitarian aid to Venezuelans traveled to Boa Vista on 20 February, capital of the border state of Roraima providing 23 tons of powdered milk and 500 first-aid kits. Brazil pledged to make humanitarian aid available at the town of Pacaraima on its side of the Brazil–Venezuela border so Venezuelans can drive it into their country.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, February 2019 effort
Humanitarian campsites were installed in at least ten states across Venezuela by 17 February; the Directorate General of Military Counterintelligence detained seven people that were installing the awnings, chairs and sound equipment of the humanitarian campsite in Maracay. Maduro's government closed airways and its maritime borders with the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao on 19 February, in a move that Curaçao officials say is to prevent aid from entering.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, February 2019 effort
British businessman and philanthropist Richard Branson produced a charity concert called Venezuela Aid Live on 22 February to raise funds for humanitarian aid and raise awareness of the crisis in Venezuela. The Maduro government responded by saying it would hold a rival concert called "Hands off Venezuela" on the Simón Bolívar International Bridge on 22 February.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, February 2019 effort
The Constituent Assembly President, Diosdado Cabello, threatened that any planes that tried to bring aid into the country would be shot down.


2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, February 2019 effort, Incidents, Brazilian border
Humanitarian aid was stockpiled on the Brazilian border, with the intent to bring it into Venezuela. On 20 February, Dragoon 300 armoured fighting vehicles of the Armored Cavalry Squadron were seen entering the Gran Sabana region. Groups of indigenous Pemon peoples blocked the entry of the military vehicles into the region, and members of armed forces loyal to Maduro fired upon them with live ammunition on 22 February. Fifteen Pemon were injured, four seriously, and two Pemon were killed.